The success and failure of international arts management: the profitable evolution of a hybrid discipline

The first years of the twenty-first century see arts management firmly established internationally as a profession deserving of criticism for its failure to meet the expectations of those with a vested interest. A search for new leaders in the cultural sector is not new. Alfred H. Barr Jr, the prototype director of the world’s first museum of modern art, was effectively relieved of his post in 1943 by his trustees, four years after the opening of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) at its purpose-built home in New York. Barr’s role had been relieved of ‘niggling detail’ and this allowed him to realize ‘the one great mission as yet undone’ to develop a collection ‘which would coherently – and exquisitely – illustrate the gospel of modern art according to Barr’ (Marquis, 1989: 210).